Bockarie says he will stay in Liberia

Former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) field commander Sam Bockarie was reported as saying on Monday that he would stay in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, until after elections in Sierra Leone, according to information posted on Tuesday on the Sierra Leone news web site. Bockarie, who fled to Monrovia nearly two weeks ago following the worsening of a rift between him and RUF leader Foday Sankoh, had accused Sankoh of sending people to kill him and refused to allow his men to disarm to ECOMOG or Nigerian soldiers in Sierra Leone despite Sankoh's calls to the contrary. A senior Liberian government source said that Bockarie would not be allowed to return home until after the disarmament process was completed in Sierra Leone, Reuters reported on 21 December. Mulbah said he was unaware of Bockarie's decision to stay in Liberia. "This is news to me," Mulbah told IRIN. He added that he was unaware of Bockarie's relationship with Sankoh and denied that Bockarie had not been able to leave Monrovia. "As an ECOWAS citizen it is an infringement of his rights," Mulbah said. "Is he not a free man?" Liberian President Charles Taylor told journalists in Monrovia on 20 December that he had been holding discussions with Sankoh and Bockarie for several days in an attempt to resolve the rift between them, news organisations reported.